In May 2013, Vertigo is back in business in a major way: The first issue of The Wake, a 10-issue miniseries by writer Scott Snyder and artist Sean G. Murphy, sold an estimated 45,000 units, the highest number for a Vertigo comic book since the year 2000. The imprint’s average comic-book sales increased to 21,000 units as a result — the highest level recorded since Diamond Comic Distributors started providing information on actual sales in March 2003. (To date, the record was held by October 2003, with average Vertigo sales of 18,000 copies.)

This is a very big deal indeed. Even with top-flight creative teams and increasingly desperate promotional stunts, Vertigo never managed to crack 34,000 units with any of its launches in more than 10 years. As recently as January 2010, Joe the Barbarian, an eight-issue miniseries drawn by Murphy and written by top-flight creator Grant Morrison, debuted with an estimated 25,543 units sold — the cover price was $1.00. American Vampire, mainly written by Scott Snyder, managed an estimated 33,762 units in March 2010, at least, by having Stephen King on board as a back-up writer.
There was a fair amount of grumbling recently when DC Comics co-publisher and fan-favorite bogeyman Dan DiDio was quoted in the New York Times expressing some doubts on Vertigo’s recent business model. It was — wait for it — “myopic” to think “that servicing a very small slice of our audience is the way to go ahead,” DiDio told Dave Itzkoff.

It’s understandable why readers and critics, probably feeling nostalgic about one project or another from Vertigo’s 20-year history, are not inclined to agree with DiDio. Especially so considering that the statement is part of a profile of outgoing long-time DC editor Karen Berger, who founded Vertigo, curated many of its signature titles and was one of a select few people left at the publisher who haven’t been subjected to the scorn of fans, critics and estranged creators on a daily basis.

Up to a point, those critics are right. Ideally, Vertigo is the type of imprint where creators get to grow and experiment while finding a voice and an audience, not necessarily starting out with great sales right away, but rewarding the publisher with a strong backlist of titles that will remain in print for years to come — not to mention a stable of homegrown big-name talent, ready to infuse DC’s signature franchises with the new blood they need every few years to keep selling. That kind of idea and talent farm is something worth worth cultivating, even if the immediate sales aren’t stellar compared to, say, Batman.

It’s the opposite of “myopic.”

In practice, though, the last time this model really worked was with Y: The Last Man (2002-2008) and Fables (also launched in 2002 and still ongoing), the two most recent Vertigo properties to register consistently and in significant numbers in the Nielsen Bookscan and Diamond “Graphic Novel” charts. For any new Vertigo series launched in the last 10 years, including titles like DMZ, Scalped and American Vampire, success had to be measured in rather more modest terms.

So, ultimately, once DC’s parent company Warner got involved more heavily and restructured the publisher in 2010, it was to be expected that Vertigo would be affected, as well. Warner doesn’t need comics anymore to make tons of money with Batman and Superman films. Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies has probably made the company more money than all of DC Comics combined. As a consequence, it seems, there’s now more of a need to be profitable right away at DC to justify a book’s existence. Among other things, this has resulted in the heavy reorientation of the Vertigo imprint that’s been happening for the last several months, and which is entering a new stage with the release of The Wake.

The Wake included, only four ongoing Vertigo titles are left in May 2013, the lowest number of monthly titles on record for the imprint since at least March 2003. And unlike previous measures taken to streamline and re-energize the brand, this time it appears to working quite well.

Relying on creators who have already enjoyed mainstream success is not how Vertigo started out, certainly. Right now, we’re in the middle of Vertigo’s transformation from a relatively sheltered idea and talent farm to a much more competitive place. In terms of content, it’s not entirely clear what Vertigo will look like once — and if — it emerges from this transformation. Recent and forthcoming additions like Django Unchained, Astro City or Collider don’t reveal a distinctive direction yet.

What The Wake does, at this stage, is to prove that “creator-driven” books (as opposed to “creator-owned,” which only fully applies to Astro City) with high-profile creative teams can sell despite the Vertigo label. Whether or not this is going to help DC in re-establishing the Vertigo brand as a selling point, we’re going to find out in the next several months.

See below for the details and, as usual, please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com‘s estimates can be found here.

This issue was billed as a lead-in to the storyline crossing over with Fables, but The Unwritten sales have been stabilizing over the last six months, anyway.

It’s the lowest-selling remaining Vertigo title by 7,000 units, but writer Mike Carey has indicated that there’s a predetermined ending point, and right now, there’s no reason to suspect the book won’t reach it.

Not really levelling out. Arrow is the lowest-selling of DC’s “digital-first” books, to which different economics apply. I imagine sales upwards of 10,000 units are perfectly all right for this type of book, as well.

We’re in “New 52” land now, where the culling never stops. In June, DC’s average sales will probably make quite the leap — not necessarily because of the big-ticket projects at the top of the charts, but more because six of the lowest-selling ones got the axe in May.

Standard attrition. Interestingly, the book seems totally unaffected by recent creative-team changes. Issue #14 was written by Fables creator Bill Willingham, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the numbers.

Sales are slightly below September’s issue #2, but still ahead of the tail end of the preceding miniseries. By the standards of WildStorm, where a book like this one would have ended up a couple of years ago, these are very good numbers.

The breakout hit of DC’s digital-first line, a videogame adaptation, keeps climbing the charts. Also, all previous issues made the chart again with sizeable reorder figures: third printings of issue #1 (9,162) and #2 (6,438), a second printing of #3 (5,861) and some plain-vanilla reorders of #4 (5,070).

There’s no readily evident reason for the big drop, which tends to be a bad sign, because it suggests that readers are just abandoning the book. Animal Man hasn’t aged well over the last six months, particularly given that it used to be writer Jeff Lemire’s signature title.

Still holding up relatively well following the arrival of the new creative team with issue #17.

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77 - GREEN TEAM
05/2013: Green Team #1 -- 27,775

These launch figures are just marginally better than those of Vibe and Katana, and slightly below those of Threshold. So unless Green Team defies the trend, it’ll be in cancellation territory by issue #4.

To be fair, it’s a new concept, and for that sort of thing, this is not a bad debut performance by any stretch, taken on its own terms. But the trends are what they are. In the market DC and Marvel have shaped in the last 10 years, barring any earth-shattering events or top-flight creators, a title like this one has a snowball’s chance in hell of reaching issue #18.

The stiff decline over the last six months is deceiving, because there have been a bunch of crossover tie-in issues that boosted sales to an insane degree. Overall, Batgirl is holding up pretty well, if you compare the numbers with the pre-“event” ones from June through August 2012.

The ceiling that none of them have reached, to date, was 34,000 units. So those 45K The Wake pulled in are quite a departure. (There was a 1:25 variant, but that’s unlikely to have added more than a couple thousand units.)

For a Vertigo title that sold in similar quantities as The Wake #1, we have to go back to Preacher #66, the final issue of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s signature series, which, according to John Jackson Miller’s Comichron, sold an estimated 43,328 units in advance orders in August 2000. That was before Diamond provided information on actual sales, so given the nature of advance orders, the actual number of units shipped to retailers in August was likely somewhat higher. Before that, you have to go back another 16 months, to April 1999, to find a Vertigo book in that area: Preacher #50, which sold an estimated 44,436 units in advance orders. (Preacher consistently sold around the 40-45K mark in the late 1990s — subsequent Vertigo titles Y and Fables managed something between 25,000 and 30,000 units for a while, in their best period.)

The last month in which the recorded orders for a Vertigo title unequivocally exceeded those of The Wake #1, according to Miller’s Web site, is December 1997. Back then, both Preacher #34 (44,816) and the Alex Ross vehicle Uncle Sam #2 (60,997) had estimated advance orders that beat the actual sales of The Wake #1. Advance orders for Uncle Sam #1 were an estimated 70,350 in November 1997.

In April there was a special 1:25 variant edition, in May there was just a “regular” 1:25 variant edition, hence the big drop. There’s a clear downward trend here, but on balance, these sales are still all right, if you look at the long-term comparisons.

The complete mess DC made of the book after Grant Morrison’s departure appears to be sinking in at the retail level. So far, there’s still enough of a buffer for Action Comics to keep looking good in the longer-term comparisons, though.

A few weeks before publication, a DC press release mentioned in passing that issue #11 was not going to be written by Grant Morrison. Presumably, the May number would be lower if people had known in advance that it was going to be a fill-in issue.

The numbers above are estimates for comic-book sales in the North American direct market, as calculated by ICv2.com according to the chart and index information provided by Diamond Comic Distributors.

ICv2.com‘s estimates are somewhat lower than the actual numbers, but they are consistent from month to month, so the trends they show are fairly accurate. Since it’s a “month-to-month” column, the comments, unless otherwise noted, are on the most recent month.

Bear in mind that the figures measure sales to retailers, not customers. Also, these numbers do not include sales to bookstores, newsstands, other mass-market retail chains or the United Kingdom. Re-orders are included, so long as they either reached stores in a book’s initial calendar month of release or were strong enough to make the chart again in a subsequent month.

If additional copies of an issue did appear on the chart after a book’s initial calendar month of release, you can see the total number of copies sold in parenthesis behind those issues (e.g. “[36,599]”). Should more than one issue have shipped in a month which is relevant for one of the long-term comparisons, the average between them will be used.

Titles released under the Johnny DC imprint and magazines, such as Mad, mostly sell through channels other than the direct market, so direct-market sales don’t tell us much about their performance. For most Vertigo titles, collection sales tend to be a significant factor, so the numbers for those books should be taken with a grain of salt as well. To learn (a little) more about Vertigo’s collection sales, go right here.

** Two asterisks after a given month in the average charts mean that one or more periodical release did not make the Top 300 chart in that month. In those cases, it’s assumed that said releases sold as many units as the No. 300 comic on the chart for that month for the purposes of the chart, although its actual sales are likely to be less than that.

For a more lyrical approach to discussing sales figures that covers all the essentials in a more condensed, less tedious fashion, finally, go right here.

“Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies has probably made the company more money than all of DC Comics combined.”

probably? more like definitely, or easily.

but yeah, good points about Vertigo. its been the best and most consistent label for years now IMHO. i own far more Vertigo books than any other “brand”. its where i direct anyone i talk to about where to go to check out comics that are “not just for kids”.

but i still always saw it as an anomaly. it doesnt make all that much sense for an IP based multi media corp to be in the business of publishing creator participating fringe comics. even playing the long game, its tough to justify unprofitable business units. having a catolog with Y and Sandman in it looks great, but what are their margins on those books and what are the chances of landing another one?

i dunno. i hope they continue publishing great comics. but if DC/WB decide that Vertigo must go the way of Wildstorm, and that their business model does not leave room for any such imprints, then it means hopefully more room for Image, Dark Horse, IDW etc, whose core competency IS publishing comic books and NOT turning established properties into movie franchises.

it will be sad for nostalgic reasons if and when Vertigo ceases to be, but we’ll always shave the books they already published, and an industry in better shape than it was before they were.

RE: DC as an IP farm: I remain fascinated at the notion that WB needs anything that DC will produce or has produced in the last 30 years to build upon to produce successful movies and TV shows around these characters. Which is not to say that, say, the GL animated series didn’t use Red Lanterns and Blue Lanterns. But I find it hard to believe that the people behind the TV show couldn’t have produced a show that was just as successful just using the basic Silver Age canon. Nolan’s movie might have been different if there was no Bane, but I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t have come up with something else just as successful. Ubu, maybe. Not to mention how much things get altered relative to the comics anyway, it’s hard to see where they needed the original anyway.

“Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies has probably made the company more money than all of DC Comics combined.”

DC makes well under a hundred million a year, all divisions. The Batman films made something over a billion dollars *so far*. Remember when Steve Jobs called the Apple TV a hobby business? Well Warner should consider DC a hobby division.

“Does the Beat have any contacts over at Comixology that could start sharing sales info with the guys who do the month-to-month sales columns?

If Diamond publishes physical copy sales numbers I don’t see why digital sales numbers should be some kind of state secret.”

Diamond doesn’t publish physical sale numbers. They publish rankings with numbers showing how the books sell in relation to Batman. Others use that to extrapolate the sales estimates.

I suspect no one is going to share Comixology numbers if they want to keep their job. You might be able to get an indie artist/writer to give sales figures on their book, but without a key like how it sells in relation to Batman or some other book, it would do no good.

I’m glad that The Wake is doing well, but I’ll be picking it up in trade. I’m hoping it drops to $20 for the trade – although knowing my luck, it’ll be a $35 HC.
Fingers doubled crossed that Lemire’s new series does the same, if not better :)

I got into Fables late and have picked up the entire series in trade. Also picked up the entire run of Jack of Fables in trade and will be picking up Fairest in trade as the funds become available. Apparently, people buying Vertigo titles in trade isn’t the exception, but rather the norm.